Every writer tries to bring his or her own philosophy of life and convictions into his/her creation" said Ashapurna Devi. Noi-Chhoi occupies a very significant place in her writings because it narrates the typical happenings of the middle-class Bengali families but is special so far as its technique is concerned. She focuses her attention on the six girls and their families. Being educated and conscious, they are modern and open in their outlook. That is why they are able to see the hypocrisy, dishonesty and falsity of their family members. Each has her social and domestic problems, facing different kinds of complications that arise from the meanness and narrow outlook of their family members. This is what brings the six together. Each of them react differently but they are unified in their protest, despite their difference in status. They revolt against the inequality that stems from the gender-based discrimination ingrained in our social psyche. In this novel Ashapurna Devi adopts a new mode of perception discarding the stereotyped technique of telling a story. That is what makes it special. Technically the novel is an example of Ashapurna Devi’s exposure to the new method of experimentation in fiction. As if she is holding a kaleidoscope before the readers and turning it round and round to show the various conditions and situations the central characters are subjected to.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ashapurna Devi
Ashapurna Debi was born in 1909. Her conservative family did not send her to school, but encouraged by her mother, she learnt to read and write on her own and published her first poem in the children's magazine Shishu Saathi. Married at fifteen to Kalidas Gupta of Krishnanagar, She continued to write with his support. Pratham Pratisruti(1964) is the first of a trilogy that includes Subarnalata (1966) and Bakul Katha (1973). Translated here as The First Promise, it won her the Rabindra Puraskar in 1966 and the Bharatiya Jnanpith award in 1977. Ashapurna published 181 novels, 38 anthologies of short stories, and 52 books for children. She died in 1995. Indira Chowdhury has a Ph.D from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and is a Professor at the Department of English, Jadavpur University. She is the author of The Frail Hero and Virile History: Gender and the Politics of Culture in colonial Bengal(1998), which won the Rabindra Puraskar in 2000. Her wide-ranging interests include cultural history, lexicography, and the history of science and medicine in India. She is currently on deputation leave at the National Center for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, where she is involved in setting up an oral history archive for the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Swapna Dutta
An accomplished writer and translator, SWAPNA DUTTA has been engaged in creative writing for more than two decades. Apart from several other awards, she has received the All India National Award and the National Fellowship for her contribution to Children's literature.
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